If you are shopping around to refinance a home in Utah and are waiting for rates to fall, you may have waited too long. With the bounce in the markets and bonds, investors are moving rates back up. Ten-year Treasury yields are a semi accurate for mortgage rate direction and those yields rose to a three-week high last week.

Why? Well the Federal Reserve and five other central banks have agreed to provide struggling European banks with lower cost loans, which rallied the Dow by 4.2% on 11.30.2012. That led to higher yields in 10 year Treasury notes, which of course means that mortgage rates in Utah came up too.

There are other factors at play here too. According to the National Association of Realtors, pending home sales rose strongly in October (the most recent data available) by 10.4%. When compared to October 2010, the indicator is 9.2% higher. What that means is there is more demand for homes right now. But that does not mean that the market is heating up and impacting prices.

But where will rates end up? There really is no telling and anyone who thinks they can accurately predict mortgage rates is not telling the truth. There are so many factors that impact mortgage rates that it is very difficult to keep track of all of them. But because the Federal Reserve finished its $1.25 Trillion mortgage-backed securities purchase in April 2010, rates will more than likely stay relatively low. The supply of mortgage money is high, and the demand for mortgages by the consumer is lower, leading to downward pressure on rates.

While I don’t think we will be in the 6.0% range until the foreclosures clear the system, I think when examining mortgage rates and determining if you want to refinance in Utah, you really should set a range for your rate and once rates enter your range, refinance and be satisfied you got the deal you were looking for. Right now I would say that range is between 3.5 and 4.0%.

Here are the historical refinance rates for Utah over the last three months: